How could Kramnik overlook the mate?

11/29/2006 – On Tuesday Vladimir Kramnik played a great game against Deep Fritz (order
it now!), coming very close to victory with the black pieces.
However, in this situation the world champion
overlooked a simple mate in one. How is that possible, is there a reasonable
explanation? To attempt one we have to delve into cognitive psychology. Report and video.

Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. Start your personal success story with ChessBase 14 and enjoy your chess even more!

Along with the ChessBase 14 program you can access the Live Database of 8 million games, and receive three months of free ChesssBase Account Premium membership and all of our online apps! Have a look today!

The
chess duel Man vs Machine, Vladimir Kramnik vs Deep Fritz is being staged from
November 25 until December 5th. It is sponsored by the RAG
AG, one of Europe's largest energy companies. The venue is the National
Art Gallery in Bonn, Germany. Schedule:

Game two – the missed mate

Before we try to explain how the blunder of the century could happen, here
for all of you who have been out of touch with chess is the fateful game, the
second of the match and one that is going to haunt the dreams of the world
champion for a long time to come.

As we mentioned in an earlier
report Kramnik played the move 34...Qe3 calmly, stood up, picked up his
cup and was about to leave the stage to go to his rest room. At least one audio
commentator also noticed nothing, while Fritz operator Mathias Feist kept glancing
from the board to the screen and back, hardly able to believe that he had input
the correct move. Fritz was displaying mate in one, and when Mathias executed
it on the board Kramnik briefly grasped his forehead, took a seat to sign the
score sheet and left for the press conference, which he dutifully attended.

Fritz operator Mathias at the end of the game

In the post match press conference Vladimir Kramnik confirmed that he had
not blundered out of exhaustion, and had been calculating very well right to
the end. He had no real explanation for the oversight that happened right at
the end.

Kramnik in the press conference: "It was actually not
only about the last move. I was calculating this line very long in advance,
and then recalculating. It was very strange, some kind of blackout. I was feeling
well, I was playing well, I think I was pretty much better. I calculated the
line many, many times, rechecking myself. I already calculated this line when
I played 29...Qa7, and after each move I was recalculating, again, and again,
and finally I blundered mate in one. Actually it was the first time that it
happened to me, and I cannot really find any explanation. I was not feeling
tired, I think I was calculating well during the whole game... It's just very
strange, I cannot explain it."

Thus the question that everyone was asking remained unanswered: how can a
player of Kramnik's caliber, a world champion who hovers around the Elo 2800
mark, overlook a mate in one move? Naturally there is no logical explanation
– we have to delve into the realm of pattern recognition and the psychology
of human perception if we want to understand anything.

Let us at least try to imagine what when through Kramniks head, and through
his eyes and optical nerves, in the critical position. We will use the spectacular
new 3D
graphics of Deep Fritz 10, the program Vladimir is playing against, to
illustrate what we are saying.

The above picture (click to enlarge) shows is what Vladimir was concentrating
on. He had probably seen that after 34...Kg8 Deep Fritz had a forced draw (34...Kg8
35.Ng6 Bxb2 36.Qd5+ Kh7 37.Nf8+ Kh8 38.Ng6+), and so his mind was concentrated
on the two wonderful pawns on the queenside which, were it not for the white
queen on e4, would simply advance and queen on a8, winning the game.

Vladimir Kramnik pondering the position before his 34th move in game two.

So things were looking great for the world champion, who was probably checking
lines we discussed above, and others as well, most involving the black pawns
on a4 and b4. In the picture above you can see his eyes are on the queenside.

Unfortunately, Kramnik had somehow not registered the threat generated by
the Fritz move 34.Nxf8. The white queen threatens mate in one on h7 (where
it is protected by the knight). Black does nothing to neutralise this threat
with his move 34...Qe3. And so, after he played it, Kramnik was immediately
mated by the computer.

But how could he not have seen the threat after 34.Nxf8. An explanation was
proffered by a very experienced chess player and trainer, Alexander Roshal,
who is also the editor of the Russian chess magazine "64".

Alexander told us that the mating pattern that occurred during the game, with
the white queen protected by a knight on f8 (as in the screen shot above),
is extremely rare in chess. It is not one of the patterns that chess grandmasters
automatically have in their repertoire. This was confirmed by a GM commentator
in Bonn, who after Kramnik's move did not notice that it was a blunder and
started discussing White's options – but not the mate in one.

Alexander Roshal assured us that, had the white knight somehow moved to g5
or f6, as in the above Fritz 10 screen shots, Kramnik would have seen the mate
in micro-seconds. The square h7 would have had a big red light blinking on
it, Roshal said, because this kind of mate (or mating threat) occurs quite
often in chess, and the mating pattern would be firmly anchored in his mind.
With the knight in an unsual position the square remained dark and Kramnik
simply did not see the danger.

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

The introductory position of the Kasparov Gambit can occur after 1 d4,1 Nf3 and 1 c4, which can appeal to a wide range of players. The usual move order is 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 Nf3 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e5!? 5 Nb5 d5 6 cxd5 Bc5 bringing us to a very sharp position. On this 60 mins, FIDE Senior Trainer Andrew Martin argues the case from the Black side, showing both classic Kasparov masterpieces and games from the present day and suggests that White's defensive task is not easy. This is a practical gambit which will help players at all levels to win more games. It is ideal for must-win situations with Black. It is a gambit that White cannot decline,as if he does, Black gets a good position instantly. White must take up the cudgels and fight!